The Exorcism
by glitterburn
Summary: John dreams of exorcism.


**The Exorcism**

It is usual for a man to dream of the events of the day before. John knows this. He's read books about it. 'The day's residues' is what Freud called it. John isn't sure that he has much time for Freud. In his experience, demons don't just lurk in one's past. He wished it were that easy to be rid of them; to put down what he sees every day as the product of an overactive imagination and a repressed childhood. Instead, in the absence of an analyst (a confessor?) who'll understand, John dreams.

He dreams about exorcism.

He wonders if he likes to relive the horror of the moment; if it makes him feel alive, like some sort of absurd adrenalin rush. He wonders then if it's the triumph that appeals to him, the thrill of the chase and the battle for the soul of an innocent. He wonders if this is job satisfaction.

John has the same dream each time, but instead of familiarity bringing detachment, it makes him feel sick with suspense.

Always the same dark corridor shot through with feeble light, windows onto the outside world or into other people's lives. The same blurred faces, dim pale shapes broadcasting anxiety and fear. John has found that even atheists become believers when faced with evidence of demonic possession. They are the ones who cling to him more desperately in real life, as if he can banish disbelief as well as demons.

In the dream they all stare at him, faces upturned in supplication. He becomes their saviour. There's something heady in that. It appeals to his pride, and an exorcist – a real exorcist, a priest exorcist – should have no pride, only humility. He should do this work in God's Name, for the good of the soul of the possessed. John knows that he does it more for revenge and for the good of his own soul. He wonders, often, if this is what will stop him from entering Heaven. He does good works, but he is not a particularly good man.

He dreams of the room. The walls are white, with faded posters in the track of light from the window. The plaster is beginning to crack just above the bed. There's the smudge of a handprint on the wall, and a grasped smear from a sticky palm on the shiny gold-coloured ball decoration of the headboard. The bedspread is pink candlewick, its ends trailing over a bare concrete floor. There are three pillows, yellow with age and sweat; John can see and sometimes feel the sharp prickle of feathers poking from them.

He dreams of the victim. They're never crawling around on the ceiling or spitting Hellfire – he always seems to arrive too late to witness such horrors. Instead they're tied down and silent, quiescent until they see him. The rope wrapped about their wrists and ankles is always cheap hardware-store twine, lashed again and again around innocent flesh.

He can never see the victim's face. It is blurred, like the faces of the people in the corridor, so that he only gets an impression of features. He cannot see the split-second snap in the eyes from terror to hatred as victim and demon wrestle for possession of the body. The mouth is always soft, though: soft with an emotion he cannot name for fear of recognising it too easily.

The body is always androgynous. It is only when he mounts the bed and sits astride the victim, a position of dominance both physical and sexual, that he can feel beneath him the contours of flesh that determine gender. Sometimes the victim is a woman, at other times, a man. But ultimately, gender does not matter to John.

The laying-on of hands. This is when it happens, when he loses himself in the dream. He schisms, becomes the possessed as well as the exorcist. It's as if his essence leaches out through his hands and enters the bound body underneath him. John can see – still – from his perspective, the exorcist's perspective; but he can also see from the position of the victim.

The body beneath him struggles, and can block each move that John makes, because he knows what John will do.

John can see the victim's face now. It's like looking in a mirror. His own eyes gaze back at him; his own lips shape words of anger. Even his breath is the same, a poisonous cloud of tar and nicotine and death.

And then he begins to lose his sense of identity. Which one of these men is he – the exorcist, or the possessed? The more he questions it, the less certain he is of himself. Slowly, he becomes the possessed.

John can feel the rope tight around his wrists, and the muscles in his thighs sprung taut and aching. He can feel the weight of the exorcist on top of him, and he fights against the restriction in his breathing. Beneath his cheek he can feel the waxen shine of the yellowed pillow. The feathers jab at his neck.

When he looks up, he can no longer see the face of the exorcist. It is not just blurred, but wiped clean like a child's slate. At this point in the dream he panics, tries to wake himself up. John doesn't like losing control, not even inside the safety of his own head. He tries to speak, to tell the exorcist that he is not possessed; that this is a mistake, a dream – it's just a dream…

The exorcist leans forward and puts a hand over John's forehead. Nothing happens, because John is not possessed – there is no demon to call forth. Instead he feels the warmth of the palm on his skin, feels the hiss of flesh burning – and then he smells sulphur.

The hand is removed, and the exorcist smiles down at him. It is Balthazar: dressed in his business suit, his hair perfectly styled, his eyes cold and amused.

John snaps his head from side to side, fighting against his bonds.

Balthazar simply digs his knees into John's ribs and holds on until John is gasping, coughing, weak. He leans close again, his eyes gleaming red. He always does something tender at this point: touches John's cheek, strokes his mouth, brushes back the dank strands of black hair that have fallen into his eyes.

John accepts the caress. He lies docile, trying to think like an exorcist. He makes the same mistake each time he has this dream. He thinks he can banish Balthazar. He tries first by praying aloud, by invoking God's name and calling upon Heavenly back-up to send this demon straight to Hell.

Balthazar kisses him, silencing him.

It always jolts John, this kiss. It shows him how weak he is, because he always responds to it. He enjoys the feel of the kiss, the taste of Balthazar's embrace. He likes the sharp demon-fangs that nip at his lips and tongue, and the hot, choking stench of sulphur that rolls into his own mouth. It is a moment of lucidity in the dream, when he breaks through phantasms and feels, if only for a short time, how real it is; how easy, how seductive, it is to be possessed.

The knowledge wakens something inside him. He can feel it stir and flower, spreading heat and cold through his body like infection. It makes him weak and angry both at once, and he wants more than a kiss.

It is then that John realises that he truly _is_ possessed.

He starts to fight again, twisting away from Balthazar's touches. He doesn't know when his clothes come off, but he knows when the demon strokes his naked skin. He can only react to it: horrible, shameful reactions that make his face burn with shame, and that make him give voice to denials rather than prayers.

Balthazar just laughs. It excites John all the more.

They struggle together, prolonging the agony as well as the pleasure. John can feel the demon that lives inside him roiling around, responding to Balthazar's encouragement. He always wonders, can a demon exorcise another of its kind? It seems to be so – John's demon writhes and twists, slices into the heat of his groin, demands recognition and birth.

Balthazar is very good, very careful. He beckons out John's demon, stroking his thighs, his cock, letting the pressure build that will expel the demon from John's body and bring him peace once more. He knows, as does any exorcist, that the trick to luring out a demon is to address it by its true name. Balthazar knows what name is given to John's demon, and he whispers it in John's ear: _Lust_.

It answers.

John feels his body descend into heat and fire and ferocity as his demon is released in a moment of startling epiphany; released into Balthazar's hands, a demon cradling a demon.

And then it is over, and John wakes with the warm, wet trails of release across his belly, and with the bed-sheets twisted around his legs, twisted tight enough to feel like ropes holding him down.

He would not mind quite so much if only his wrists were not cut and chafed by rope-burns, and if he could not smell the lazy, mocking scent of sulphur patterned through the apartment.

**end**


End file.
